You can now ask your Amazon Echo to play tunes from Apple Music. It’s a significant step, because the Echo has long supported Apple Music’s rivals, like Spotify, allowing users to request songs and playlists from Alexa by voice.
As Apple continues to focus more on services — it reported $9.98 billion in services revenue in the fourth quarter, up 27 percent from the prior year — it’s more important than ever for those services to be available when and where Apple fans want them.
Before the Echo update, Apple Music users had to either connect to the device with Bluetooth or shell out $350 for an Apple HomePod.
Activating Apple Music on an Amazon Echo is really easy. It took me about 30 seconds from my iPhone in the office. Here’s how you do it:
- Open the Alexa app on your phone (you can use Android, too).
- Tap the menu button on the top left.
- Choose “Settings.”
- Select “Music.”
- Tap “Apple Music.”
- Choose “Settings” again from the Apple Music page.
- Tap “Link Account.”
- Log-in with your Apple ID
- Enter in your two-factor authentication code (if you have this enabled.)
- Tap “Allow” to let Alexa access your Apple Music library (“non-personal” information like age, gender and listening activity may be shared with Amazon, according to Apple’s terms.)
- Tap “Done.”
Once you’ve connected your account, it’s time to make it the default service so that Alexa is set to play music from Apple Music rather than Amazon’s own service.
- Open the Alexa App on your phone.
- Tap the menu button on the top left
- Tap “Settings.”
- Choose “Music.”
- Scroll down to the bottom under “Account Settings” and tap “Default Services.”
- Select “Apple Music.”
That’s it. Now you can ask Alexa to play tunes right from Apple Music.
